WELCOME TO HOLLAND

sunflower mom

Wed, Mar 01 2006, 8:57 pm

WELCOME TO HOLLAND
(Author Unknown)

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared the unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this ...

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy.

You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum, Michaelangelo's David, the gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland!"

"HOLLAND?!" you say. "What do you mean, Holland? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy!"

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they have not taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guidebooks. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy.

But after you've been there for a while and after you catch your breath, you look around, and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills. Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming from and going to Italy, and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain will never, ever, ever go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss.

But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.

youngmom

Wed, Mar 01 2006, 9:02 pm

Really nice. Thanks for sharing!

Tefila

Wed, Mar 01 2006, 9:05 pm

Yes Thank-You Smile

I read this years ago in the nshei newsletter it's prob 6 yrs old.

tzipp

Wed, Mar 01 2006, 10:23 pm

Actually, the author is known:

"WELCOME TO HOLLAND"
by Emily Perl Kingsley ©1987 All rights reserved

lucky

Wed, Mar 01 2006, 11:23 pm

Thanx for posting. I read it a few yrs ago, I wanted a copy of it to give to s/o, but couldn't find it.

sarahd

Thu, Mar 02 2006, 4:23 am

Thanks, I've also been looking for it for years.

Pearl

Thu, Mar 02 2006, 5:07 am

this is beautiful, thank you for posting.

nb: Very Happy

when I saw the title I thought imamothers were invading holland.....

elisecohen

Thu, Mar 02 2006, 6:56 am

The dissenting voice--I hate that little essay. Everything is not all warm and wonderful. I love my children but I hate having a medical home, being isolated and dependent, spending time in ERs and inpatient wards, running from doctor to doctor, being misunderstood because no one has heard of my kids' rare syndromes, etc, etc. There's a rebuttal once published called "Welcome to Lebanon" that captures a lot of this feeling a lot better.

We're thank G-d in a good place right now, everyone fairly stable, but all it takes is one small change and everything could easily fall apart. Balance is so fragile in the medical household. I realize the essay is supposed to be about the child, not the experience, but I've never had any problem accepting my children as they are. I just hate that they go through so much pain, rejection, and trouble.

Pearl

Thu, Mar 02 2006, 7:48 am

elisecohen, I am sorry, I am sure none of us tried to upset you in any way...
if I did, then please accept my apologies.

elisecohen

Thu, Mar 02 2006, 9:06 am

No, no, no, nothing upset me. Really, you're all free to express yourselves, not to mention to feel the way you do. I just had to kvetch that I personally feel that the Holland thing is very sugar coated and it may express how we feel about our CHILDREN but not about their situations and lives. And I'm not trying to speak for others either; I'm sure there are those who feel the Holland essay does sum up their relationships and experiences. It's just not mine.

amother

Thu, Mar 02 2006, 9:20 am

Elise you are completely justified in your complaint. No one can judge anyone's situation, and dare tell you to have a good attitude and that will help you "get over it". The most positive attitude can't change a harsh reality. But (and this part is a lesson for everybody, myself included) I do think this essay is a bit of a reminder that we can choose what we want to focus on at certain times. It's so easy to get caught up and so negative (with good reason) that life becomes just hard to enjoy. The essay is just a reminder to look for the positive, and enjoy the blessings you do have. Not to get so burned by life that you forget to experience it, and just worry your way through.To me, the essay pointed this out in a refreshing way.

ChavieK

Thu, Mar 02 2006, 9:50 am

Elise, I can't say I hate the essay but I do agree with you that this is a bit sugar coated. I personally would like to read the other essay you mentoned about Lebanon. The are some days I probably feel like Holand & some that I feel like Lebanon. What I can tell you is that the Holland essay has been an inspiration for my kids.My 12 yr old liked it so much that a friends 16 yr printed it on really pretty paper & mounted it for her.But my kids ,especially the younger ones,don't have to deal with all the ramifications.I'd rather they feel like they are in Holland.

Mommy912

Thu, Mar 02 2006, 10:40 am

Trip to Holland? Not us.
a little 'musing'
by Jennifer Armerding

Hey! You are having a baby! Sure enough, you are told by the doctors that you have a baby, but apparently the baby is Dutch, rather than Italian, which is what you were expecting. (Let's make the silly assumption that nationality brings with it different care needs!) Woah! Now you need to learn to care for a Dutch baby. New lingo, new physical care, etc. But. you are IN Italy. Your friends are still Italian. Your grocery store is still Italian. Your church is still Italian. And most of them haven't met anybody Dutch before. They are intrigued by your child. However, Dutch babies are pretty adorable, in general, like any other baby. You also find that there are a league of professional people swarming around whose entire job is to help your baby adapt to become more Italian as he grows. You meet other families who ended up with Dutch babies and live in Italy. You all hold out hope that your babies will become more Italian as time goes on. As your baby grows, you read magazine articles and see television features about babies 'just like yours' who beat the odds and became Italian! Yours doesn't.

He isn't a baby anymore, and the former swarm of professionals becomes a few here and there. People aren't saying it, but you get the feeling they don't think there is much chance he will gain too many Italian skills as time goes on. He is slower, can't seem to learn the language, looks different, etc. Ok, you tell yourself! Dutch is good! This kid is the greatest! People from Italy and Holland can coexist! We will call it inclusion! Then you learn that inclusion means that the Dutch kids have to be able to do what the Italian kids are doing or they are deemed 'inappropriate'. Some of your friends' Dutch kids manage to do this. Some of them don't. Apparently they belong with other Dutch kids in a separate place. Italian kids will visit them from time to time, maybe reading to them or playing games, and then they will leave. Other kids have 'friends'. Your kid has 'helpers'. The Italian kids might even earn points and rewards for volunteering to do this!

Your child is now not a 'little kid' anymore. You and he walk down the street in your wooden shoes and realize all of a sudden that everyone rushing past you is wearing the latest styles; leather, silk, designer clothes. They are talking madly on their cell phones. They are laughing and drinking their espressos in sidewalk cafes. They are speaking Italian, which you used to know. In fact you were fluent. Now you wonder what happened. Dutch is now your language. The Italian seems.. foreign somehow. When did YOU become Dutch? Well, the hard part is that, far from being an adorable baby, your child is now a challenge for Italian people to accept. Unless they know other Dutch children or have known you for a while, it is hard for them to know what to say to you, how to treat your child. If they invited your child to a birthday party, for example, what would they do with him? They only speak Italian. The games will all be ones Italian kids play. So they don't invite him. The Italians are big hearted, warm people, in general, but still, you are a foreigner. Other kids stare and sometimes even worry that they might become Dutch if they get too close. So they don't. You stand in a crowded hall with your wonderful, sweet child with a 10-foot parameter of empty space around you, and that is when it hits you.

We are not in Holland. We are never going to Holland. This is it.

ChavieK

Thu, Mar 02 2006, 10:59 am

Mommy 912 ,a little depressing but how true! Thanx

amother

Thu, Mar 02 2006, 11:02 am

Check out the begining of a graphic novel about this topic:

http://www.seraphicpress.com/a.....1.php

click on the pages to enlarge, what do think?

sunflower mom

Thu, Mar 02 2006, 11:31 am

Sorry Elise that this essay upset you. I tried to google "Welcome to Lebanon" but was unsuccessful. I would really like to read it. If you have it or know where to find it, please post.
Thanks Smile

elisecohen

Thu, Mar 02 2006, 3:27 pm

I can't find it now! I'll keep looking. I know I didn't imagine it; I did read it at some point a few years ago. It was more than a little tongue in cheek.

Mandy

Thu, Mar 02 2006, 5:16 pm

I'm glad you wrote Elise, because I wouldn't have said it nearly as politely as you did. This week I worked with a child with severe disabilities, a nine year old whose main accomplishment is that he has learned how to sit up on his own. His parents and therapists love him and he is cute, but it is not welcome to holland by any stretch of the imagination.